Edward Bascome

“ Thus Grand Cairo and Constantinople to this day are never free from the plague. Grand Cairo is always crowded by a vast number of inhabitants of the lowest order in the most abject state of poverty. The streets are very narrow and close, and thirty or forty persons often inhabit one small house. It is situated in a sandy plain at the foot of a mountain, which, by excluding the winds, makes the heat more stifling. Through the midst of it passes a great canal, which is filled with water at the periodical overflowing of the Nile, and after the river has fallen it is gradually dried up ”

“ Thunder and lightning pierced the heavens, and the ashes and smoke from the burning gulf discharged into the air were wafted to Rome, Syria, and Africa, the inhabitants whereof trembled lest the world should be destroyed or turned into chaos; the fish in the neighbouring [18] seas were killed. These calamities were preceded by a long drought in Italy during the summer; and in the autumn of A.D. 80 a terrible pestilence broke out in Rome, and destroyed for some time 10,000 citizens daily. ”

“ The breaking out of epidemic pestilence in Orenburg, in August, A.D. 1829, was attended with some extraordinary phenomena,—the atmosphere was suddenly filled with dense masses of small green flies, which in Asia are looked upon as the forerunners of pestilence, and are therefore called plague-flies; the streets swarmed with these insects, and on quitting their houses, the inhabitants were literally covered from head to foot with them.
A.D. 1830. A blight or disease, this year, made its appearance in the potato and other crops in various parts of Germany, in Ireland, and in America. ”

“ The chronicles of all nations are replete with notices respecting the remarkable commotions of nature, which have proved from time to time so inimical both to the animal and the vegetable kingdoms; and on carefully reviewing the facts detailed in the histories of epidemic pestilences or diseases, it will be readily perceived that, during certain periods or seasons, ELEMENTAL DISTURBANCE has enveloped, as it were, the entire globe, carrying death and misery into every quarter. ”

“ Without light, independently of the heat which is its ordinary concomitant, there would scarcely exist a trace of vegetation, and when we reflect on the remarkable dependence of the animal and vegetable kingdoms on each other, the animal by the extrication of carbonic acid gas, affording a fluid essential to vegetation; the plant, on the other hand, by the emission of oxygen, supplying the atmosphere with the gas which is equally necessary for the well-being of the former, we cannot suppose light to be less essential to animal life. ”

“ There is perhaps no greater absurdity than the common notion, that washing the face and hands, and occasionally the feet, constitutes personal cleanliness, or that such partial ablution can act hygienically. It is from all parts of the body’s surface (more so from some than from others, especially from those that are covered) that chemical compounds and effete elements are eliminated in the shape of the sensible and insensible perspiration—therefore, to escape the evils attendant on filthy personal habits, we must not be content with partial ablution, but extend it to the entire body. ”

“ An epidemic catarrh pervaded all Europe: it began in Sicily, and showed itself in Italy, Venice, and Constantinople: it infected Hungary, Bohemia, and Saxony, and it afterwards prevailed in Norway, and raged in Sweden, Poland, and Russia. The symptoms were, violent fever for some days,—four or five generally,—with pains in the head and chest, and severe cough, terminating in profuse perspiration. 4000 persons died of it in Rome, 8000 in Lubeck, and 3000 in Hamburgh; and great numbers were carried off in other places by epidemic pestilence. ”

“ Overlooking the omnipotence and all-wise direction of their Creator, they exhorted the people to bear patiently that which had befallen them, and to believe in no other causes of the pestilence which was effecting their destruction than those springing from the operations of nature, which at certain revolutions of time produce such mutations in the bodies of men, in the earth, in plants, and in all things grown out of the earth, as to excite disease. ”

“ We neglect the first principles of vitality, to go groping into sewers and cesspools, which we repeat are but secondary considerations, the ultimatum of which will prove to be but little better than the relief of the olfactories, to tickle the gustatory nerves by furnishing for our palates, in the shape of Thames water, the filthy abominations of an overgrown city. ”

“ A comet was seen this year. Vienna about this time suffered from epidemic pestilence, as also did Holland the year following; the disease continued until 1558. This disease commenced in the form of influenza in various parts of Europe, and in France, Italy, and Germany; Spain also suffered from its violence, which was greater in some countries than in others, viz. Florence and Tuscany. In France, malignant dysentery was the most predominant malady; agues in Holland, and petechial or spotted fever in Spain; the last-named disease was as fatal as the true plague. ”

“ Bathing appears to have been a practice instinctively adopted by all nations and tribes throughout the universe. Amongst the North and South American Indians—in Africa—even among the most barbarous and uncivilized races—bathing is a usage to which they pay scrupulous attention: yet, strange to say, to this day, personal ablution is little known or practised in this otherwise proudly pre-eminent country, as a hygienic agent: it is viewed more as a matter of luxury, and then but very sparingly had recourse to, even by our wealthy and middle classes. ”

“ Men of high rank and the sons of great men fed upon grass even; and herbs such as they once despised and believed not fit for human use, the greatness of the famine made now most sweet to the starving. The public ovens were constantly occupied by men fighting for the bread, and noblemen, suffering from the pangs of hunger, became thieves and stole the loaves from the bakers’ shops.” To add to their misery, heavy rains fell, and pestilence broke out amongst them, so that a thousand deaths happened daily. ”

“ Anno 126 B.C. Epidemic pestilence prevailed with great mortality in Africa. Orosius, Justin, and Livy, who have described it, attribute this pestilence to the stench arising from the putrid carcases of dead locusts, which were brought over by a strong east wind in such multitudes that they devoured every green thing, even to the bark of trees; they were subsequently driven by a south wind into the Mediterranean, and being again washed on shore in the warm season of the year, putrefied, and produced this awful pestilence, which destroyed 800,000 in Numidia alone. ”

“ Everywhere on the Continent, baths are to be had in the greatest state of perfection. The French perform entire personal ablution daily. In Italy, Holland, and Germany they patronise the bath to a great extent, and amongst the Turks and Persians, and throughout Asia, bathing is imperative as a part of their religion. They consider it an absolute necessary of life, whilst we, the most refined people in the world, are satisfied with a change of linen, and that too, [233] very often over a not very clean under-garment, or body flannel! ”

“ Again, contagious diseases are recognizable by the determinate periods of their phenomena, especially as regards specification, as also by their mode of propagation, whilst, if epidemic pestilences were dependent on, or caused by, contagion, they would never cease until whole communities became extinct!
A period of one hundred and sixty years has elapsed (up to the year 1832) since the occurrence of any plague or aggravated pestilence in this our own country, notwithstanding [211] our intercourse with countries where awful pestilence may be said always to exist. ”

“ From the disgusting apathy evinced in this huge metropolis in the disposal of the dead, it would appear that nothing short of one of those terrible epidemic inflictions—inflictions with which in former days the Almighty was wont to visit the iniquities of his people, will bring those whose immediate province it is to a sense of the evils and perils of such abominations, which they, in spite of common sense, actuated by cupidity and fool-hardiness, still perpetuate. ”

“ It is a lamentable fact, that in this our own country, with all its practical talent, and its great advance in civilization, hitherto so little progress has been made in a matter deeply involving the moral, as well as the physical, condition of the great mass of our population. As one proof out of many of what may be effected by judicious measures, we may advert to the present condition of our navy, as contrasted with that of the last century. Formerly we heard among our seamen of nothing but dysentery, fevers, scurvy, &c., which diseases have been known to depopulate whole fleets. ”

“ An epidemic catarrh called ‘the snuffles’ was very destructive to cattle, especially to horses, in Denmark. Pestilence again prevailed among the canine race at Madrid; the poultry died of it at Genoa, and horned cattle in France, as also in Sweden. This extensive prevalence of epizootic disease indicated a pestilential condition of the atmosphere and a disturbed state of the seasons: the disease first attacked and proved fatal to dumb animals, and afterwards man became its victim: its ravages were attended with great mortality. ”

“ Many learned men at Oxford [78] and Cambridge were carried off by this terrible disease, at a time, too, when the sciences were much cultivated and were flourishing. The town of Calais was visited, and, what was very remarkable, none but the English residents there suffered; the Frenchmen enjoyed an immunity from the disease, which did not even spread to any other part of France,—at least there is no account of its having done so. This same year Germany was visited by a brain fever—an epidemic encephalitis. An earthquake caused great destruction in Suabia. ”

“ The plague or pestilence first attacked horses, oxen, mules, sheep, dogs, cats, and even birds, and then it affected mankind; death was sudden, and the streets were choked with the carcases of men and beasts, and universal nature seemed to be suffering from premature caducity. ”

“ In the month of December, Paris was assailed by this malady, which was also rife at Madrid; it was termed ‘la grippe,’ and seized more than half the population: five thousand persons were said to have been laid up by this wide-spreading disease at one time in Paris. About this period, the island of Java was visited by epidemic diseases. Virulent small-pox committed great havoc, and then typhus prevailed in Ireland; the mortality among the medical profession was great, it being calculated that one-fifteenth of the entire medical community died there during the year. ”

“ I am, therefore, of opinion that the grand phenomena of nature, exhibited in the commotions of our physical world, supply us with abundant materials for the explication of all epidemic pestilences or diseases ”

“ In the Report of a committee of the House of Commons, published so far back as 1836, it is stated of the water from the Thames, that it “receives the excrementitious matter from nearly a million and a half of human beings;—the washings of their foul linen,—the filth and refuse of many hundred manufactories,—the offal and decomposing vegetable substances from the markets,—the foul and gory liquid from slaughter-houses,—and the purulent abominations from hospitals and dissecting-rooms, too disgusting to detail.” ”

“ Epidemic pestilence broke out in Argel and other parts of Berberia. The winters of this year and the following were the coldest ever experienced by the oldest inhabitants in Europe; the summers were rainy, and the autumns cold: epidemic disease spread over both continents—Europe and America. Pestilence, say Drs. Sastre and Puiz of Spain, prevailed over nearly the entire world; the city of Vich was greatly afflicted. Epidemic pestilence also prevailed with the greatest violence on the coasts of Spain; the Hungarian fever did much mischief in Leyden. ”

“ Notwithstanding our imperfect acquaintance with the manner in which water is suspended in the atmosphere, it is well known that the human body is greatly influenced by the aqueous vapour in such a state of suspension, and that the sources of poisonous emanations are active in proportion to the grade of atmospheric humidity and its temperature. An atmosphere surcharged with humidity not only prevents the cuticular discharge necessary to a healthy state, but sensibly diminishes the watery exhalations from the lungs, thereby inducing various morbid effects on the system. ”